Hit U.S. soap opera The Young And The Restless looks set to dominate the 2013 Daytime Emmy Awards after landing a whopping 23 nominations. The show will compete against The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital and One Life to Live for the title of Outstanding Drama Series, and it also received nods for Outstanding Lead Actor and Actress in a Drama Series thanks to Michelle Stafford, Peter Bergman, Doug Davidson, and Michael Muhney.
The remainder of the mentions were for prizes in supporting acting and technical achievement, such as directing and editing, as well as for outstanding work completed by a young star.
Meanwhile, country singers Little Big Town landed a nomination for Outstanding Original Song for their recording Good Afternoon (Good Afternoon America), as did Sheryl Crow for her contribution to U.S. journalist Katie Couric's talk show, This Day (Katie).
In the category of Outstanding Talk Show/Entertainment, comedian Ellen DeGeneres (The Ellen DeGeneres Show) will go head-to-head with the hosts of The Talk, which stars Sharon Osbourne and Sara Gilbert, and The View, which includes Whoopi Goldberg.
Other nominees included singer Trisha Yearwood for Outstanding Culinary Program (Trisha's Southern Kitchen), actor Wayne Brady for Outstanding Game Show Host (Let's Make a Deal), and embattled former Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash for Outstanding Children's Program Performer (Sesame Street). Clash resigned from the show in November (12) after two accusers came forward with underage sex claims.
The winners will be announced during a special ceremony in Los Angeles on 16 June (13).
The main categories are as follows:
Outstanding Drama Series:
The Bold and the Beautiful
Days of Our Lives
General Hospital
One Life to Live
The Young and the Restless
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series:
Susan Flannery (The Bold and the Beautiful)
Peggy McCay (Days of Our Lives)
Michelle Stafford (The Young and the Restless)
Heather Tom (The Bold and the Beautiful)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series:
Peter Bergman (The Young and the Restless)
Doug Davidson (The Young and the Restless)
Michael Muhney (The Young and the Restless)
Jason Thompson (General Hospital)
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series:
Julie Marie Berman (General Hospital)
Melissa Claire Egan (The Young and the Restless)
Jessica Collins (The Young and the Restless)
Katherine Kelly Lang (The Bold and the Beautiful)
Arianne Zucker (Days of Our Lives)
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series:
Bradford Anderson (General Hospital)
Jeff Branson (The Young and the Restless)
Scott Clifton (The Bold and the Beautiful)
Billy Miller (The Young and the Restless)
Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series:
Kristen Alderson (General Hospital)
Hunter King (The Young and the Restless)
Jacqueline Macinnes Wood (The Bold and the Beautiful)
Lindsey Morgan (General Hospital)
Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series:
Max Ehrich (The Young and the Restless)
Bryton James (The Young and the Restless)
Chandler Massey (Days of Our Lives)
Freddie Smith (Days of Our Lives)
Outstanding Children's Series:
The Aquabats! Super Show!
Everyday Health
R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour The Series
SciGirls
Outstanding Children's Program Performer:
Kevin Clash - Sesame Street
Jeff Corwin - Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin
Joey Mazzarino - Sesame Street
David Rudman - Sesame Street
Outstanding Culinary Program:
Best Thing I Ever Made
Bobby Flay's Barbecue Addiction
Giada At Home
Recipe Rehab
Trisha's Southern Kitchen
Outstanding Game Show:
Cash Cab
Family Feud
Jeopardy!
Let's Make a Deal
The Price Is Right
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
Outstanding Game Show Host:
Ben Bailey - Cash Cab
Wayne Brady - Let's Make a Deal
Billy Eichner - Funny Or Die's Billy on the Street
Steve Harvey - Family Feud
Alex Trebek - Jeopardy!
Outstanding Talk Show/Entertainment:
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Live! With Kelly and Michael
The Talk
The View
Outstanding Original Song:
Good Afternoon America - Good Afternoon by Little Big Town
Katie - This Day by Sheryl Crow

While recent animated blockbusters have aimed to viewers of all ages starting with fantastical concepts and breathtaking visuals but tackling complex emotional issues along the way Ice Age: Continental Drift is crafted especially for the wee ones — and it works. Venturing back to prehistoric times once again the fourth Ice Age film paints broad strokes on the theme of familial relationships throwing in plenty of physical comedy along the way. The movie isn't that far off from one of the many Land Before Time direct-to-video sequels: not particularly innovative or necessary but harmless thrilling fun for anyone with a sense of humor. Unless they have a particular distaste for wooly mammoths the kids will love it.
Ice Age: Continental Drift continues to snowball its cartoon roster bringing back the original film's trio (Ray Romano as Manny the Mammoth Denis Leary as Diego the Sabertooth Tiger and John Leguizamo as Sid the Sloth) new faces acquired over the course of the franchise (Queen Latifah as Manny's wife Ellie) and a handful of new characters to spice things up everyone from Nicki Minaj as Manny's daughter Steffie to Wanda Sykes as Sid's wily grandma. The whole gang is living a pleasant existence as a herd with Manny's biggest problem being playing overbearing dad to the rebellious daughter. Teen mammoths they always want to go out and play by the waterfall! Whippersnappers.
The main thrust of the film comes when Scratch the Rat (whose silent comedy routines in the vein of Tex Avery/WB cartoons continue to be the series highlight) accidentally cracks the singular continent Pangea into the world we know today. Manny Diego and Sid find themselves stranded on an iceberg once again forced on a road trip journey of survival. The rest of the herd embarks to meet them giving Steffie time to realize the true meaning of friendship with help from her mole pal Louis (Josh Gad).
The ham-handed lessons may drag for those who've passed Kindergarten but Ice Age: Continental Drift is a lot of fun when the main gang crosses paths with a group of villainous pirates. (Back then monkeys rabbits and seals were hitting the high seas together pillaging via boat-shaped icebergs. Obviously.) Quickly Ice Age becomes an old school pirate adventure complete with maritime navigation buried treasure and sword fights. Gut (Peter Dinklage) an evil ape with a deadly... fingernail leads the evil-doers who pose an entertaining threat for the familiar bunch. Jennifer Lopez pops by as Gut's second-in-command Shira the White Tiger and the film's two cats have a chase scene that should rouse even the most apathetic adults. Hearing Dinklage (of Game of Thrones fame) belt out a pirate shanty may be worth the price of admission alone.
With solid action (that doesn't need the 3D addition) cartoony animation and gags out the wazoo Ice Age: Continental Drift is entertainment to enjoy with the whole family. Revelatory? Not quite. Until we get a feature length silent film of Scratch's acorn pursuit we may never see a "classic" Ice Age film but Continental Drift keeps it together long enough to tell a simple story with delightful flare that should hold attention spans of any length. Massive amounts of sugar not even required.
[Photo Credit: 20th Century Fox]

The basic premise of most crime revenge dramas is how much of our humanity we're willing to trade to get back what the other people — the ostensible baddies — have taken from us. Oliver Stone returns to this familiar stomping ground with Savages a splashy adaptation of Don Winslow's novel about a unique love affair a major marijuana-dealing business and an increasingly violent pissing match between two SoCal growers and the Baja Cartel.
Stone's frenetic visual style is in full swing but even this Oscar-winning auteur can't quite raise the film from mediocrity. It's hard to care whether or not Ben (Aaron Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch) rescue their gorgeous mutual girlfriend O (Blake Lively) from the cartel if O isn't engaging enough to persuade us she's worth the bloodshed. O (short for Ophelia — an allusion to her earthshaking climaxes) is not a well-written character to begin with but she's even less engaging as played by Lively. Johnson is unconvincing as the bleeding heart Ben and the details his character is given — extra earrings a shoddy-looking tattoo on his neck even white boy dreads at one point — undercut his believability even more. Kitsch is given a few prominent scars and a mean squint but he doesn't quite bring the weird slightly empty vibe of Chon to life.
On the villain side Benicio Del Toro chews every inch of scenery from Laguna Beach to Tijuana as Lado. He's rocking an intense moustache that he strokes when he's lying or being a creep (which is most of the time) a vaguely mullet-like wig and a fondness for torture. Salma Hayek takes no prisoners as the head of the cartel nicknamed Elena la Reina who is both a frustrated mom whose college-age daughter is blowing her off (aw!) and a brutally tough woman in a man's world. John Travolta definitely enjoys a bit of Pulp Fiction ridiculousness as Dennis a DEA official who's in Ben and Chon's pocket. It's hard to tell just how funny Savages is aiming to be. Lado Elena and Dennis are cartoonish but Ben Chon and O are earnest — which is to say a little bit boring.
The double- and triple-crossing is practically moot as is the wacky technology that Ben and Chon employ; it's like The Social Network meets surfers. The real meat of the movie is the flash and violence but it's not the kind of thing that stays with you like Stone's Natural Born Killers. Savages doesn't have the same lingering aftertaste. It's not that a movie needs to have some sort of message with its pointed commentary on the media's bloodlust but the gist of Savages — that we're all savages at heart or that we can easily become a savage given the right circumstances — is not that interesting or unique.
Oddly enough Savages pulls a few punches when it comes to its source material (hard to believe when the movie kicks off with a glimpse of an abattoir-like enclosure and close-ups of men begging for their lives just as a chainsaw revs in the background). Winslow's book is a quick enjoyable read with an interesting on-page style that's hard to replicate verbally. It has a sort of ADD-addled feel that the movie tries to but doesn't quite capture. While it's not always fair to compare an adaptation to the book it's based on Winslow is both the author and one of the screenplay writers so some of the choices made behind the scenes don't quite add up. Cut are significant and menacing back story for Lado and all of the zestiness out of O. Why add in certain plot points and take out others unless it was to give one of its big name stars more screen time? The most interesting part of the story the love story is treated like a wink wink homoerotic thing than an actual relationship between three people who adore each other which is how it's portrayed in the book. It's hard not to be a little disappointed especially given Stone's no-f**ks-given attitude. (Or as O would say baditude.)
That said it is a somewhat entertaining diversion and a nice tour of lifestyles of the rich and criminal. Lively is all tangled tan limbs and luxurious hippie clothes and the homes they frequent whether on Laguna Beach or a desert compound are meticulously decorated with exquisite expensive taste. Santa Muerte imagery also figures heavily in the background of many scenes. The scenery is gorgeous — even the marijuana looks amazing. It's good for adults to have another R-rated choice in what's usually a season dominated by blockbusters but in years to come you'll more likely to reach for your old True Romance DVD than Savages.

New York's Central Park Zoo's main attraction--Alex the Lion (voiced by Ben Stiller) and his best friends Marty the curious zebra (voiced by Chris Rock) Melman the hypochondriac giraffe (voiced by David Schwimmer) and Gloria the motherly hippo (voiced by Jada Pinkett Smith)--are pampered beyond belief. They enjoy lavish meals and have their own park views. In other words they live in blissful captivity. But Marty isn't as content as his friends. He yearns to live in the wild and when he makes an attempt to see this wilderness firsthand he inadvertently drags his friends into his wild scheme. Soon the animals are darted captured crated and put on a ship to Africa to go live in their natural habitats. Add a quartet of renegade penguins looking for their own wild time and you've got yourself an Animal Planet special. But when the penguins stage a mutiny the four crated pals get accidentally knocked off the boat. They suddenly find themselves washed ashore on the exotic island of Madagascar with the jungle all around them. No daily shows. No adoring fans. And especially no steak served on a silver platter. There is a gaggle of dancing lemurs but that's about it. What's a lion to do? Why eat his best friend of course!
The fun part of listening to celebrity voices is trying to imagine the actors as their CGI-created characters. Stiller finds his inner-lion strutting around as the conceited neurotic but lovable Alex. Rock easily slips into his striped alter ego Marty the "crack-a-lackin'" zebra with the free spirit and the zippy one-liners. And Schwimmer fits Melman's germaphobe personality perfectly-he's the ultimate New Yorker who doesn't want nature all over him. Only the petite Pinkett as the zaftig Gloria is a little hard to picture but Pinkett's sassy attitude comes shining through. The ones who steal the show however are the four plotting penguins lead by no-nonsense leader Skipper (voiced by co-director Tom McGrath). Part Charlton Heston part Robert Stack Skipper has never believed he was a real penguin. But he is determined to get his crew to the "wide open spaces of Antarctica." "Just smile and wave boys smile and wave " is his double-talk for "Let's dig a hole into the sewer and blow this Popsicle stand." Maybe we shouldn't tell them Antarctica really isn't all that great of a place to live.
The folks at DreamWorks still haven't quite been able to top their best Shrek as opposed to their rivals at major competitor Pixar who just seems to be getting better and better. Sure Shrek 2 made a lot more money but it ended up just being more of the same and not quite as funny. Shark Tale was just a frenetic underwater mess. Madagascar with its crazy animal antics comes the closest to matching Shrek's wit and originality especially during the first hour. Directors McGrath and Eric Darnell paint a pretty picture of zoo life if a tad unrealistic. Please has anyone been to a zoo lately? Blissful is hardly the word I would use to describe how animals live. But for the movie's sakes we'll go with it. Yet when the gang hits the shores of Madagascar the pace unfortunately slows down. The fish-out-of-water scenario as the four try to adjust to the wild is hilarious especially tangling with the lemurs. But then it switches gears as Alex's wrestles with his own beastly nature while trying not to bite Marty's butt. It feels tacked on and contrived and doesn't fit in with the rest of the raucousness.